


A Case of You

by miss_methuselah



Category: Sicario (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 14:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5251901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_methuselah/pseuds/miss_methuselah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alejandro expects a shoot-out, a trap, or another dead end. But he finds Kate in a town with a single post office, a church, and a liquor store, alone and dying in her apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Case of You

Alejandro kills Alarcón’s eldest boy first and the boy goes down quickly, cheek smacking into his vegetables as his blood and brain matter pool in his plate like a dark halo.

The wife wails loudly, the first sound she’s made since Alejandro’s arrival. But when Alarcón grips her hand, she chokes on her breath and grows silent and trembling. Her other hand tentatively reaches for her second boy, her only child, who curls in on himself as he drops his fork and shakes.

For a second, Alejandro feels his resolve waver. But when he looks into Alarcón’s eyes and finally, _finally_ , sees the fear he has dreamt about putting there for the last ten years, he can’t fathom how this can’t be right. Alejandro points his gun at the second boy.

“Where is she?” he asks.

 

* * *

 

Alejandro can feel her blood slip between his fingers, soak his clothes, and the heavy weight of her mangled hand on his back as she tries to hold him. She looks at him with black, weeping pits and smiles brightly, teeth dark with blood as it pours from her mouth. “Alejo,” she whispers, “por favor, no llores. Don’t cry.”

Pain bursts bright and sharp against his cheek as knuckles meet his face with a strength that knocks his breath away, leaves his ears ringing, forces him awake as mumbled words tumble out of his mouth.

“Medellín, as I live and breathe,” someone says.

American. Just like—

“Kate.” Alejandro startles at the sound of his voice, worn and gravelly, as if he hasn’t spoken in years.

Someone chuckles in a far corner, and Alejandro follows the sound, head snapping up. The motion causes a throbbing, terrible ache to course down his spine. He takes a steadying breath before he peels his eyes open to survey his surroundings, only to be blinded by intense, florescent light that blurs his vision, makes the shadows in the room come in and out of focus. 

Alejandro shifts and realizes his wrists are bound and he’s strung up from the ceiling, his bare toes barely grazing cold tile. His fingers are numb and he tries to curl his hands to get proper circulation only to wince loudly.

“You broke my fingers,” Alejandro murmurs. He keeps his eyes trained on his feet, swinging uselessly in the air. There are three, maybe four, people in the room. Windowless, probably soundproof or deep enough underground that no one would hear him scream if he tried. It’s the same thing he would have done, if the roles were reversed. 

“Couldn’t take any chances. Not after you just fell into our laps.” More chuckling, a pause, then, “Do you know who I am?”

Fingers tap his forehead before someone yanks his hair, forcing him to look up and stare at a man with a lined face, salt and pepper hair, and a genial expression. “No,” Alejandro answers.

“I figured as much. I’m afraid I’m not as infamous as you are.” The man nods. “My name is Matt Graver, special task force for the U.S. government and blah blah blah. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all that stuff. No, no. I’m sure you want to know how you got here, right?” When Alejandro says nothing, Graver continues, feigning confusion. “Kate, was it?”

At the mention of her name, Alejandro pictures her: clear, blue eyes trained on him as she stuffed a dirty rag around his scream and pressed the heel of her hand against a gunshot wound in his chest.

Graver lightly smacks his face, brandishing a very thick, manila folder that has Kate’s grainy picture stapled on the front, her hair as dark as rich soil. He opens the folder carefully, making sure to keep its contents close to his chest, away from Alejandro’s wandering eyes. 

“Kate Macer,” Graver starts. His voice echoes, carries to the farthest reaches of the room, “twenty-two years old, born in Miami, Florida. At fourteen, Macer was reported missing after her parents were killed in—” Graver cuts himself off, slapping the folder closed. “As you can see, there’s a lot more information in here and I’d wager you’d be very interested in it, Medellín.”

In this world, it’s always one lie after another, Kate had said, spoon-feeding him clam chowder from a can. I know you already know you can’t always believe what some people will tell you, Alejandro.

He closes his eyes against the memory, keeps his gaze fixed on Graver’s flip-flops. “Why would I be interested in that?” 

“Well, isn’t Kate Macer the woman who killed your wife and daughter?”

 

* * *

 

Alejandro jolts awake to an incessant pounding in his head. He tries to sit up but only crumbles into a heap, realizing any movement makes the pain unbearable, makes nausea settle deep in his belly. His hands reach blindly around him as he slowly opens his eyes to darkness. For a moment, he’s overwhelmed by the sudden vulnerability and helplessness he feels, and a certain type of cold overcomes him, shoots down to his very bones. It’s a panic that makes his heart thunder in his ribcage.

Alejandro stiffens once he recognizes he’s not alone. But by the time the realization comes to him, someone is gripping tight at his wrist. Instinctively, he starts to thrash, flailing his free arm about, hoping to strike whoever is holding him. Another hand darts out to catch his other wrist and Alejandro recoils.

Now the dread gives way to outright fear and Alejandro thinks, in this moment, he can admit _this_ is what terrifies him the most: dying alone, unable to fight back. He doesn’t want to die alone, not here in this dark place where no one can hear him cry out for help, not without seeing his family one more time.

“¿Dónde está mi esposa?”Alejandro whispers, barely audible to his own ears. “Mi hija, mi hija.”

A long stretch of silence follows this, and Alejandro counts each unbearable second as it drags on. But those same hands holding his wrists release him and gently circle his shoulders, hoisting him into a sitting position. Something is pressed to his lips.

“Drink,” a voice instructs, one he does not recognize. “Drink.”

The voice is comforting and Alejandro obliges, opening his mouth and exhaling in relief when a sweet, cold liquid trickles past his chapped lips. 

“Go back to sleep, Alejandro,” it says and he is guided down until he’s resting on a mattress. Alejandro closes his eyes and drifts away.

 

* * *

 

In the end, it’s almost easy and a little underwhelming. Alejandro expects a shoot-out, a trap, or another dead end. But he finds Kate ten minutes outside of Truth or Consequences, in a town with a single post office, a church, and a liquor store, alone and dying in her apartment.

Someone got her right in the gut, just deep enough so that she bleeds out slowly, painfully. Sitting out on the balcony, face pale and sweaty against the afternoon sun, Kate gives him a cursory glance when he steps into her line of vision. But a vindictive, satisfied streak swells in him when he spots her quivering. And as he checks her for weapons, his own gun cocked against her temple, she waves a hand in the general direction of the empty chair across from her. Alejandro doesn’t sit but he chooses to stand close enough that his knee brushes her bicep. Kate tries to put some distance between them but then gives up when Alejandro just inches closer.

“Have you ever heard about the history of this place, Truth or Consequences?” she asks. She points to a spot beyond her balcony toward the desert skyline, to a cluster of cacti and gangly weeds. “A serial killer lived right there. Allegedly, he tortured and murdered somewhere between fourteen to sixty people. Even got his daughter to help him.

“When one of his victims or the prosecutor asked him why he did what he did, he said that it was like a compulsion. Some people like to shop, he said. Some people like to play chess, he said. He liked to kill and torture people. Just a compulsion.”

Alejandro is only half-listening to what Kate is saying. He’s studying the puddle of blood beneath her feet, the red stains that smear her toes. Kate tries to hide it but her breathing is labored, and the perspiration settling on her collarbone is telling. Alejandro finally takes a seat.

He could do it now, wrap his fingers around her neck and push down just so until her neck snapped. He’s lost count of the number of times he fantasized about it. And when Kate’s eyes flit up to meet his, he makes sure she knows exactly what he’s thinking about.

She nods, shifting her chair forward, close enough that their knees press together. “I’ll make this easy for you,” Kate says.

She slots his hand between her palms, curls his fingers around the gun’s grip, and angles it just right. She rests her chin delicately against the barrel and keeps her eyes steady on his.

“Go on, then, Alejandro.” Kate clicks the safety. “Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”

 

* * *

 

“What are you talking about?”

Graver signals to someone behind him and a tall man in thick-framed glasses approaches, handing Graver another manila folder and positioning a fold-out table right before Alejandro.

“I’m talking about this,” Graver replies, opening the folder and carefully situating photographs of a female’s mutilated body in front of him. Alejandro realizes with a sickening lurch in his stomach that the woman is his wife.

“It’s a shame, what they did to her,” Graver continues. He gives another photo a glance before he places it in the center of the table. “According to one of our sources, your wife was most likely alive when Macer cut off her breasts, when she carved that message into her forehead. Blood splatter does not lie. She made sure your wife bled out slowly.”

Alejandro can feel her blood slip between his fingers, soak his clothes, and the heavy weight of her mangled hand on his back as she tries to hold him. She looks at him with black, weeping pits and smiles brightly, teeth dark with blood as it pours from her mouth. “Alejo,” she whispers, “por favor, no llores. Don’t cry.”

“And your daughter,” Graver says, sounding more clinical than compassionate, forcing Alejandro away from his thoughts, “to be killed the way she was. Even if we could, there was nothing to recover. The acid…had corroded away too much.” Graver presents another picture for Alejandro’s inspection and he looks away, swallowing to keep the bile down his throat. 

“I know in these…situations, it’s not uncommon for women and children to be raped and killed and whatnot.” Graver shrugs. “Some may say what happened to your family was just a turning of the tide, you know? Just another person who has to pay their pound of flesh, as the saying goes. If that’s the case, I would not blame you. I could maybe understand why you would just…let it go.”

Alejandro stares at Graver for a long, long moment. “But you know who I am,” he says eventually. “And you know where I come from. Letting go is not an option.”

Graver pounds his fist on the table in excitement. “See that’s what I’m trying to figure out here. You were in contact with Macer. That much is clear. You had an opportunity and yet,” Graver extends his arms out, as if to show off the room, “here you are.” Graver shrugs again. “That leaves me with two possible conclusions: either you knew who she was and you let her go. Or you didn’t know.” Graver eyes are knowing as he says, “I could be wrong though. I wasn’t there. Either way, it doesn’t really matter.”

Graver pulls out his cell from his back pocket, a shrill beep sounding with each button he presses as he nears Alejandro. He shows the face of the phone, the number of a contact, and his thumb hovering over the green phone symbol.

“This is the direct number for the U.S. Attorney General. I mean, members of the Colombia drug cartel were not what we were aiming for but we’ll take what we can get these days.” Graver smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I press this button and that’s it. Unless—” 

“Unless I help you,” Alejandro finishes.

Graver laughs and it’s hollow. “You’ll be doing a lot more than helping but sure, let’s call it that. And let me reassure you, Medellín, I’m not a greedy man. I believe in fair exchanges. And because I truly believe we can help each other, I want to give you something in return. I’m sure you can guess what that is.” 

“Another opportunity,” Alejandro replies. 

This time, Graver’s smile is genuine. He puts away his cellphone. “Yes,” he agrees. “Another opportunity.” 

 

* * *

 

Sound comes back first, and Alejandro struggles against the embrace of unconsciousness until he finally feels the pain come next. It lingers but is no longer as excruciating, just a constant pulse in the background. 

There is someone sitting beside him and as he slides his eyes open, he spots a young woman with pale skin and dirty blond hair, with blue eyes that glint from the dim light of a lamp. He shifts, realizes his wrists are tied to the bedpost.

“Had to,” she explains in a quiet voice. “You kept thrashing in your sleep.” She points to a bruise that blooms dark on her cheek.

Alejandro draws a shallow breath, opening his mouth to speak. But the only thing he can manage is a soft rasp, his throat achy and swollen. She has water in a shallow bowl ready for him as she helps prop his head up. He drinks greedily, splashing it on his clothes in his haste. 

“Easy, easy,” she murmurs, “it’s not going anywhere.” He pays her no mind, relishing in the refreshing coolness of it all the more. He is grateful and wants to tell her so. But he is…the water is…

Kate easily catches the bowl as it falls from Alejandro’s limp hands. Carefully, she rests his head back against the bed and sighs, exhausted. For now, he will sleep soundly but she will have to think of something else for the next time he is awake. Kate doubts Alejandro will be willing to swallow drugged water a second time.

She wraps herself in a blanket, settles in a corner of the bedroom, and listens to his even breathing as she slowly dozes off.

Alejandro doesn’t know if he has slept for hours or days, but when he is alert once more, he spots the sun, weak and faint, just brightening the bedroom. He gets to his elbows before he forces himself into a sitting position. The exertion leaves him winded and as he tries to catch his breath, Alejandro notices his wrists are not tied. 

He takes in his surroundings quickly, seeking out anything he can use as a weapon. But the bedroom, with its peeling, painted walls and crumbling plaster, is bare save for the mattress and an empty nightstand. Alejandro struggles to his feet and immediately collapses, biting through his lip to keep from yelping in pain.

“Your leg is broken in two places.” He glances up to see the woman from earlier watching him from the doorway. “You had a lot of other injuries, too. Blunt force trauma to the head. Gunshot wounds. A stabbing. You’re lucky to have survived—”

“The water was drugged,” he interrupts because he needs her to _shut up_. He can’t listen to her talk anymore. If he does, he’ll have to remember that his family is—

Alejandro can feel her blood slip between his fingers, soak his clothes— 

No, he thinks, halting his thoughts. Not again. Not now.

“Yes,” she nods. “Yes, it was.”

“Where did you find me?”

Kate avoids his stare, fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “On the side of the road in the desert. You were left for dead.”

The rug prickles against his beard as he lays his cheek on the floor. You’re lying, he doesn’t say. “Wherever you found me, you should have left me there.”

Kate’s beside him in two, long strides, kneeling down and jerking her head toward the mattress. “Let’s get you back to bed. I need to redress your injuries anyway.” She curls her hands under his arms. “This is going to hurt. 

It does hurt. It takes her two tries to drag him to and heave him onto the bed. The movement pulls at his stitches, and by the time he’s laid out on the mattress, the ache in his body has morphed into an awful pain that claws at the underside of his skin.

Kate works quickly, tearing at the old dressings, inspecting his injuries, coating them in antibacterial cream, and applying fresh bandages. He studies her face intently, memorizes each tilt of her head, every minute expression that passes over her features, the feel of her palms against the old scars on his torso.

When Kate finally finishes, she reaches for a cloth in her jeans and pats his sweaty brow dry. “Are you hungry?” she asks.

Alejandro looks away from her, keeps his eyes steady on the ceiling and counts the cracks and mildew stains. “No,” he says. 

Kate frowns slightly. “You’re stubborn,” she decides.

She makes dinner anyway: plain, undercooked rice, canned peaches, and burnt chicken. She sets an extra plate on the nightstand and sits on the floor in a corner to eat her own meal. Alejandro eyes the bottled water next to his plate.

“The water is not drugged,” she says. “You can drink it.” When he doesn’t move, she gets up, opens the bottle, and pours a bit of the water into her mouth. Alejandro watches as her throat moves when she swallows. She offers him the bottle as she wipes at her mouth and he silently takes it.

Alejandro eats rapidly, shaking from hunger, just barely maintaining his table manners. He finishes the last bite all too soon and it doesn’t take long for him to feel drowsy and sluggish, for a weight as heavy as lead to settle in his limbs.

“Don’t fight it,” Kate says softly. “You need to rest.”

“Why?” he croaks.

Slim, warm fingers splay on his shoulders, slowly leaning him back down. “Trust me, Alejandro.”

He falls asleep feeling as if someone is pressing down on his chest.

 

* * *

 

Alejandro reaches for a bottle of whiskey by Kate’s feet and pushes it into her palms. “Drink it.” 

Kate feels a flutter in her heart as a rush of panic lingers right in the center of her chest. She eyes him suspiciously. “Why?”

With his other hand, he digs the barrel of the gun further into her chin. “Drink, Kate.”

She takes the bottle from him and slowly unscrews the cap. Kate watches him through narrowed eyes as she wraps her mouth around the lip of the bottle and starts to swallow. She never built up a tolerance for alcohol, no matter how much she tried, and nearly gags at the taste but keeps drinking.

It only takes a few minutes before a warm sensation starts at her chest and steadily creeps throughout the length of her body, the familiar, pleasant buzz in her head, constant and thrumming like the adrenaline and fear pounding in her heart. The ache in her abdomen is almost tolerable.

Kate takes another long sip, trembles with quiet laughter when some of the whiskey sloshes in the bottle and spills down her front. She rests her hand against the finger Alejandro still has curled around the trigger, pushes down, and he finally lowers the gun.

He catches her chin in his hand and watches as her pupils gradually dilate. Alejandro carefully takes the whiskey bottle from Kate and sets it on the ground. “How do you feel?”

He doesn’t wait for her to answer before he’s standing. Kate gasps, shaky and hoarse, when Alejandro yanks her up by her feet and all but drags her to the bathroom. Even now, years later, she still feels slight and breakable in his hands. Kate tries to elbow him in the head, misses, and only manages to graze her bloody fingers along his jawline.

“What are you doing?” Kate demands as he pushes the bathroom door open and forces her inside.

“Your first aid kit,” Alejandro says, “where is it?”

She leans heavily against the wall, gulping up air, closing her eyes against her spinning vision. “It’s too late. I’ve been like this for hours.” He ignores her and maneuvers around her so he can let the faucet run in the tub.

Kate slowly sits down on the toilet and tries to balance herself on the rickety seat cover. She watches Alejandro make a mess of her medicine cabinet, pausing to inspect a small box of hair dye before giving Kate a pointed, questioning look.

She smiles at him and it’s wide and all teeth. “I know, I know,” she says, holding up a hand in surrender. “I don’t think blond bombshell is your color either.” Kate curls up in a ball, biting her tongue to keep from giggling too loudly. She fails.

Alejandro eventually finds the first aid kit in the medicine cabinet. It’s mostly empty except for a couple of needles, thread, and a single roll of bandages. As he washes his hands, he sees Kate gingerly slip off her shirt, leaving her in a sports bra and shorts. When he approaches her, Alejandro stoops down so she can circle an arm around his neck.

“Why are you doing this?” Kate asks. Alejandro doesn’t respond as he helps to her feet. He catches her by the hip when she stumbles and she leans her weight against him as they cover the short distance to the tub. 

Kate hisses as she dips into the ice-cold water in one, clean drop. She rests her head against the tile and watches the muscles in Alejandro’s arms tense as he slowly gets to his feet, standing to his full height. 

She tries again. “You’ve had plenty of opportunities to end this. Why are you stalling?”

Alejandro won’t say anything, and as she observes him roll up his sleeves, wash a needle off under the faucet and slip the thread through the needle’s end, she realizes there is an ease in his movements, a dangerous fluidity that he never had the last time she saw him. She also realizes, in a moment of dread, she’s lost track of his gun.

Alejandro leaves the bathroom and Kate takes a second to make sure her tiny switchblade is still tucked away in her sports bra. When he returns with the bottle of whiskey, she says, “You told me once that I reminded you of someone who was very dear to you.”

He pauses, minutely, but it’s long enough for Kate to see it, take advantage of it. “Someone special,” she continues, watching him closely. “You remember?”

Of course he remembers. He remembers everything. From Kate’s first smile in his direction to the feel of her cheek collapsing under the weight of his fist. Thinking about it only makes the separation between who he is now and who he was then so much more evident, save now he has the added benefit of distance and pity and regret. 

Kate’s voice cuts through the quiet. “I’ve always wanted to know who…who it was.”

Alejandro drops to his knees when he’s close enough to the tub. He places the first aid kit on the toilet seat. “My daughter,” he replies.

Kate’s brows draw together in bewilderment and her unease heightens. “How?”

“You look like a girl when you’re scared, Kate. Such beauty in you when you let yourself be frail, like the daughter you took from me. My lovely girl…she was only eight.”

Alejandro’s voice catches on the last word and Kate finally sees it, the rage he has kept so carefully contained, waiting to possess him, unable to find its way to the surface. It’s there in the hard set of his mouth, there in the way his torso leans forward into hers, crowding her, there skirting on the edge of his reason, tempting him. 

Kate recoils and Alejandro quickly snatches her elbow, grabs her face tight between his fingers, makes Kate look at him. He whispers, “I can’t think of my wife, my child, without thinking about how I last saw them, about what you did.” 

She struggles against his grip, ends up splashing bloody water over the edge of the tub when she flails. “Let go of me,” Kate snaps, blowing out a jerky breath. 

But Alejandro’s hold only becomes stronger, hard enough that she knows ugly, dark bruises will be left behind. “You’ve soiled every memory I have of them. It’s impossible to imagine the faces I loved without seeing the initials carved into my wife’s forehead, her breasts cut off. You did this to me. You made me what I am.” 

“That’s not true,” Kate replies softly. “You chose this life just the way I did.”

“I didn’t choose anything!” Alejandro shakes her, and the motion sends shooting pain right to her stomach. But Kate does her best to ignore it, breathing through the discomfort and forcing her words out.

“Yes, you did. You could have had a life outside of all of this. Instead, everyone knows about what you did to Alarcón…to his children. Instead, you are here.”

Kate deliberately skims trembling fingers along Alejandro’s arm. She doesn’t dare break eye contact with him, even when she feels his muscles jump, his skin prickle, under her touch. “Ten years later and you are here,” she finishes in a hushed tone.

After a tense length of silence, Alejandro’s hand on her face eases, gentles as he tucks strings of her sopping hair behind her ear. 

Not for the first time, Kate wonders what Alejandro was like before all of this, before the throes of all-consuming grief and loss and fury took hold of him. Wonders if they had met under different circumstances, would they always be on opposite ends. Kate’s throat clenches tightly.

“Damn you, Alejandro,” she murmurs. “Why did you come here? I had made peace with this. I was ready.”

Alejandro reaches into her bra, draws out her switchblade, and flashes it in her face. “Liar,” he hisses. “How? How could you have any semblance of peace?”

Kate doesn’t speak for a long moment and by the time she thinks she has enough nerve to answer, the moment has passed. Alejandro is reaching for the thread and needle inside the first aid kit.

“Are you going to kill me now?” Kate asks. Her voice is calm and steady, holding more confidence than she ever thought she could muster when she pictured this moment in her mind’s eye.

Alejandro presses on her shoulder until the back of her head is against the shower tile. “Not yet.”

At least, Kate tells herself, he has the decency to look at her when he says it. But she suspects—she hopes—Alejandro is the type of killer who always looks his victims in the eye, right until their very, last breath. 

Kate nods as she rests her cheek against his palm. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Graver whistles as soldiers bring Alejandro down from the ceiling, set the bones in his fingers and dress them in bandages. Graver gives him three bottles of water he goes through in a handful of gulps. The pictures of his family’s remains are gone and Kate’s rests in the center of the table.

“You know,” Graver starts, staring at the ceiling, “trying to eliminate the drug cartels and the drug trafficking, it’s like a never-ending losing battle. Just last year, in Nogales, Arizona, one of the biggest underground drug tunnels was found, almost as big as two football fields, for heroin, cocaine, and marijuana.

“Last week, in another part of Arizona, the FBI did a house raid, found dead bodies wrapped up and lined up between the walls. At least forty bodies, twice as many in the basement. Both right in our backyard.

“We can’t stop it. That’s the plain truth. So the next best thing the U.S. government can do is control it. Until someone finds a way to stop twenty percent of America from putting this shit up their nose, order is the best we can hope for.”

“How?” Alejandro asks. “How could you possibly control it?” 

Graver pushes back against his chair and carefully balances his weight on the hind legs. “By any means,” he says simply. “Some people think that if you follow procedure, it’ll only be a matter of time before you catch the bad guys. Do things by the book, they say, and you can’t be wrong. But that’s not true. It’s never been true. How can you effectively fight against an imminent threat when that threat, by its very nature, doesn’t need to follow the rule of law?”

“What you’re trying to do,” Alejandro coughs, “goes well beyond the American legal system.” 

Graver hands him another bottle of water. “Of course it does,” he replies amiably. “If what we were doing was legal, you and I would not be having this conversation right now and you would not be here. But our way is the most effective.

“Before…all of this, I was in law enforcement for almost fifteen years, making small drug busts, arresting middlemen, filing paperwork, going to court, and watching it amount to not a goddamn thing because there would be five more for every one person I caught. That is until I came here and was given the proper freedom to make a difference.”

“So what do you want from me then? Do you want me to help you control it?”

“Yes.”

“To what end?”

“To the very end, as low down or as high up as it needs to go.”

Alejandro shakes his head. “Tracking Alarcón would be extremely difficult.”

“But not impossible.”

“And suicidal,” Alejandro continues as if Graver has not spoken. “Everyday, dozens of people are killed with his blessing, and there are hundreds of men willing to die for him, protect him, because of the chokehold he has on their lives. To find him would be like discovering a vaccine.”

“But not impossible,” Graver stresses, finally looking at Alejandro. “At least not for you.”

“And if I say no?” 

“You won’t say no.” Graver laughs. “You know and I know this is the best shot you have to get what you want. Besides, as far as everyone else is concerned, you died along with your family, left for dead in the desert. The only people who know otherwise are me and,” Graver points to Kate’s picture, “and her. And eventually, if you hold up your end of our arrangement, it’ll just be me.” Graver drums his fingers against the table.  “What do you say, Medellín?”

Alejandro does not answer immediately. Up until this moment, he’s known something was off with Graver but was not able to pinpoint it. But realization slips into place. It’s his smile or what Graver tries to pass off as a smile. The forced cheer, his over friendliness, his mock concern. It’s off-putting, probably an interrogation tactic from years past that morphed into what it is today. Even now, his grin in Alejandro’s direction is more of an imitation of it than the actual thing. Alejandro is the first to look away.

“It’s not like I have much of a choice in the matter.” 

The chair legs rattle as Graver gets to his feet. “Oh, Medellín, everyone always has a choice. It may not be choices they want or like but there are always choices.” He slaps Alejandro on the back. “Why don’t we get you something to eat, hmm? You like Tex-Mex?”

 

* * *

 

It takes Alejandro far too long to accept who Kate actually is. In this tiny, old apartment, in the confines of the bedroom, he doesn’t need to confront the fact that Kate knows how to reset his leg precisely, that she prefers to keep switchblades under her clothes instead of handling her guns, that she occasionally still drugs his food and water when she thinks he’s not paying attention. 

He overlooks all those things when he sees her sipping tea and lounging on the kitchen counter, when she reads to him from tattered books, when she’s snoozing in her corner of the bedroom, when she sings in perfect, pretty Spanish under her breath as she burns their dinner.  In those moments, the world seems big enough to hold just the two of them, and it’s the only time he has some reprieve from his thoughts about his family, his nightmares.

But whatever this is—Alejandro is not sure what to call it—is tenuous and fragile, and will fall apart at any moment with a stare that lingers too long, with a question that presses for too much. So he looks away when Kate goes to retrieve his meals. He doesn’t ask for her name or how she knows his. He ignores the pressure in his chest lessening bit by bit, and the anger that dwells under his skin fading from a constant burning to a dull throb.

They stay like this for almost eight weeks, suspended in this limbo of false peace, and when it finally comes to an end, when Alejandro wakes to the sight of Kate seated in front of him, watching him and holding a cellphone in her lap, he tells himself he doesn’t feel anything.

There’s a long stretch of silence before Kate nods toward the nightstand. Alejandro glances to his right and sees a photograph that wasn’t there when he first fell asleep. His wedding ring is placed near the lamp.

“Go on,” she urges, “look at it.”

Alejandro feels his heart start to race furiously, adrenaline and nerves shivering their way down his spine, as he slowly reaches for the picture and looks. It’s worn and creased but his wife’s dark eyes still stare back at him. She’s smiling and laughing with their infant daughter cradled in her arms, swathed in pink blankets.

“When I found you, that photo and your wedding ring were in your back pocket,” Kate confesses. “They must be very important to you, your wife and your child.”

Alejandro’s throat constricts painfully and he flips the picture face down to hide his shaking hands. “It’s nothing. It’s just a picture,” he replies calmly.

“Something that loved isn’t just a picture,” Kate insists. Her gaze drops to her knees. “Do you know how they died?”

Alejandro’s stomach twists as nausea washes over him, and with it comes shame. He doesn’t want to answer but he’s been around Kate long enough to know that she’s infinitely patient and she will wait him out.

“I do,” Alejandro finally says. He hates himself for his trembling voice, doesn’t hate how Kate’s eyes catch in the sunlight, almost luminous, when her head snaps up to look at him.

“No, you don’t.” She shakes her head as she whispers it, pauses before she speaks again. “When I was fourteen—” Kate cuts herself off with a heavy, shaky exhale and starts over. “When I was fourteen, my parents were taken from me. And if I had the chance, I would want to know what happened to them.” She nods her head. “I would want to know everything. I would want to know the truth.”

Alejandro wants to tell her he knows exactly what he needs to: the wet sound of a machete against a jugular, the smell of acid on skin, the feel of his bones being crushed under boots. But the words won’t come out.  They are lodged tight somewhere in his throat.

Kate opens her mouth to talk but Alejandro says, “Don’t.” It’s out of his mouth before he realizes, heavy and wrecked. He can’t stop trembling. “ _Don’t._ ”

“I killed them,” Kate says, eyes red-rimmed and bright. “I killed them,” she repeats.

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Stop talking—”

“I was contracted to follow you and study you for months, to kill you at the best opportunity and leave. Your wife was supposed to be alone. It was supposed to be just you and her. But then your daughter was there. I heard her, hiding in the closet, underneath a blanket.” Kate drags a hand through her hair, inhales deeply. “I had to…I had to change my plan. I had to. The rest…the rest was just Alarcón wanting to send you a message.” 

A sound Alejandro’s never heard before, something ugly and woeful, rips from his mouth. The pain is palpable, twisting low in his gut, and it makes him gasp for breath. He presses his forehead against his raised knee and tries to control his hitched breathing. Kate coming to sit by his side startles him. So do his tears.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.  

Kate lets out a shuddering gasp when Alejandro’s punch connects with her cheek. He reaches for her neck but Kate manages to grab his wrists, digging her nails into the soft flesh there. Looking at her now, Alejandro can no longer see that open, vulnerable expression in her features. In its place is a cautious, blank look. Blood trails from the corner of her mouth, darkens her lips.

“Don’t,” Kate warns. “Please, Alejandro.”

His blazing rage from before quickly dwindles and leaves him with something brittle and sore in its wake. “I hate you,” he spits out.

Kate pauses at his words, and Alejandro feels a deep satisfaction swell in him because he thinks he’s actually hurt her feelings. But then he understands that the look on her face is nothing more than pity. 

“You don’t hate me,” Kate replies. “What you hate is that you feel controlled. You hate that those stronger and more powerful than you hold such command over your life. But people like you and me, we go where we’re told and we do as we’re told. Isn’t that right, Medellín?”

Her grip on his wrists is not strong and Alejandro manages to yank his hands free and lean forward to grab her, instinct driving him forward. But a stab of pain shoots through his temple when Kate slams the grip of her gun there. Alejandro stills for a moment, stunned, and doesn’t realize he’s lying on the floor until he sees Kate peering down at him, weighing and calculating.

She trains her gun on his face. “On your belly,” she demands. “Hands behind your back.”

Alejandro’s vision swims as he turns, pressing his pounding temple to the carpet and linking his fingers against his spine. Kate handcuffs his left wrist to the bed frame and carefully binds his ankles with thin wire rope. She places the cellphone on the floor, right in his line of sight. 

“We’re close to the U.S.-Mexican border. There’s a single contact on that phone. If you call him and mention my name, Kate Macer, he will come for you.”

Alejandro can’t bring himself to say anything, even as Kate gathers the little she has and cleans any part of the apartment that held a trace of her. He waits, listens to her hovering near the front door for a handful of seconds, and only reaches for the phone when he’s certain she’s long gone.

 

* * *

 

Kate takes a moment to study the setting sun as it casts her surroundings in an orange glow. She’s familiar with this area: flat, dry land in every direction, squat cacti, and the faces of mountainous boulders on the horizon. It’s beautiful and it’s far enough away from town that no one will come looking or suspect a thing. Kate presses her heel into the soil, notes how it gives under the pressure. More than easy for a shovel, she thinks, a perfect place.

Kate inhales deeply and holds her breath, closes her eyes as a cold breeze whistles through her hair. She hesitates for a second, considers looking over her shoulder but thinks better of it. If she did, she is not sure what she would find lurking in Alejandro’s gaze, if there would be anything there to find at all. She decides it’s best not to wonder. 

Kate finally, slowly exhales as her hands clench into tight, tight fists. She takes a single step forward, then another. 

For a second, Alejandro almost reaches out, almost says, “Stop, Kate,” and Kate would stop, he thinks, would come back to stand by his side so he could untie her wrists and take her back to her apartment. And if he really wanted to (and Alejandro already knows he really wants to, has really wanted to for so, so long), he would stay with Kate for a night, two nights, a third, until her stab wound properly healed and then maybe he would forget why he was supposed to leave in the first place, maybe they would grow so used to each other like before, learn each other so well that he could persuade Kate to run away with him, live with him even, and—

Dry weeds crunch under Kate’s shoes as she comes to a stop, several feet in front of him.

And this isn’t that kind of story, Alejandro thinks, resigned.

He raises his gun and aims.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Although Sicario was not my favorite film of the year, it was a movie that lingered in my head for a while because of the charged interactions between Kate and Alejandro. Despite that, after leaving the theater, I couldn't help but think there was a human element lacking in Alejandro. We know he’s out for revenge after the murder of his wife and child but beyond that, there’s little else we know. I wanted vulnerability from him, and I think that’s what motivated me to write this. But maybe this issue will be resolved with the supposed prequel. 
> 
> There were direct quotes I pulled from the film in here, and some quotes pulled that didn't make it to the official screening, all obtained from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and Reddit.
> 
> Thank you for reading and I do hope you enjoyed it. Comments are always wanted and appreciated.


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